


It Happened So Fast (that love you never notice)

by Saral_Hylor



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Bucky Is a Good Bro, Clint Is a Good Bro, Cute boys in love, Football | Soccer, Getting Together, Hockey, M/M, Nat fishes it back out, Natasha Is a Good Bro, Oblivious Steve Rogers, POV Second Person, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Sharing a Bed, Sports, Sports Carnival, Stargazing, Steve's Pov, bus trips, but puts his foot in his mouth, fluff and cuteness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-11
Updated: 2014-01-11
Packaged: 2018-01-08 05:34:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1128934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saral_Hylor/pseuds/Saral_Hylor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>Bucky, Sam and Clint stuff around the whole way, jogging together and making feigned blocks with their sticks to try and throw each other off course. Usually you’d join them, but Tony calls your name right as you are about to catch up to them, and it is only when you looked around that you see he is lugging the bag with all his goalie padding and guarding, making half-hearted shoulder gestures between you and the bag, and putting on one of the best pitiful looks you’ve seen. You smile, but go and grab one handle, and between the two of you, you manage to carry the bag and keep up a fairly decent pace. Tony grins at you around a red and yellow mouth guard, and you can’t help but smile back.</em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Steve meets Tony when they're teamed together at an inter-school sports competition. It's five days, but sometimes that is all it takes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It Happened So Fast (that love you never notice)

**Author's Note:**

> This is definitely not my usual sort of story. I wrote over 6000 words and didn't angst. I'm more shocked than anyone, I can assure you.  
> As a point of interest, in high school fics, I almost always imagine Steve as being skinny, but taller, or in varying stages of buffing up. In this, he is supposed to be taller than MCU per-serum Steve, but definitely not buff yet. He's still a scrawny teenager. I just didn't go into real depth of description with that. 
> 
>  
> 
> Beta'd by the gorgeous [quandong_crumble](http://archiveofourown.org/users/quandong_crumble/pseuds/quandong_crumble).
> 
> Cheer squad comprised of [3White_Mage3](http://archiveofourown.org/users/3White_Mage3/pseuds/3White_Mage3), [jujitsuelf](http://archiveofourown.org/users/jujitsuelf/pseuds/jujitsuelf) and [joidianne4eva](http://archiveofourown.org/users/joidianne4eva/pseuds/joidianne4eva). Thanks for all your support!

It was a state sports camp. Mixed schools – the best, or at least most enthusiastic, all piled together in one place for a variety of sports. You’re there for hockey and soccer, even though you really wanted to go for football, but your school coach said until you beef up a bit and stop looking like you’d break on first contact, you had to try something else. You guess that the greenstick fracture in your left arm at the beginning of year try-outs didn’t help.

There aren’t enough students from your school who want to go for hockey to make up a full team, plenty of snide remarks about wanting to be Canadian but forgetting to pack the ice, so you’re told that you’ll be joined by students from the other schools in the districts and make up a team that way. The private school that’s not even a mile from yours has a coach who is far more passionate about hockey than yours is, and two weeks before you are supposed to get on the bus to go away for the competition, you and the three others from your school who want to go away for hockey are invited over one Thursday after school to practice all together. It’s fun, you play a few short games, rotating teams and positions, but mostly working with the others who are going away with you, and deciding who will play which position. They have a goalkeeper, and after watching him for only half a game, you know he’s the best choice. Somehow, despite being from a public school, they all elect you as the captain, and you can’t help but blush when the goalie winks at you, smacks you on the shoulder and starts calling you Cap. You only hope that it’s hidden by the fact your face is already flushed from exertion.

Your school has a couple of buses, but only one is going on the trip to the sports carnival. As students hand in permission forms and seating is argued over, there isn’t enough room for all of you. Notes go out a week before the carnival, asking for parents to volunteer to drive the handful of students remaining, and you wish your mum could drive you, Bucky, Sam and Clint, but she has to work.

It’s last minute, but in the end, the private school comes forward, saying they have a few seats available, and since you’re all on the same hockey team together, it’s you, Bucky, Sam and Clint who end up on that bus.

You crowd in together, blurry eyed, before dawn, some students still wearing their pyjama pants. The goalie is one of them, and you think that the Iron Man flannelette pants and oversized grey hoodie are cuter than they should be on a senior student. He smiles when he sees you looking, and you want to remember his name from when you practiced together, but there were so many names being thrown around that day that you couldn’t keep track of them all. He shuffles over to you, smelling like coffee, the metal workshop at school, and something you can only describe as warm and comfortable. You probably shouldn’t like the combination as much as you do, but he slings his arm around your shoulder and calls out to everyone and tells them your name and that you’re the captain of the most kickarse hockey team in the state, and suddenly you aren’t an outsider, aren’t just a public school low life, and despite blushing at the attention, you smile your thanks.

The bus ride there lasts for over two hours; it’s the furthest you’ve ever been from home without your mum, which settles like a heavy weight in your stomach. Bucky notices, not just because he’s sitting next to you, but because he knows you so well, and knows how close you and your mum are. He distracts you with dyslexic games of I Spy, but you’re possibly more distracted by the goalie.

His name’s Tony, which you relearn by overhearing the guy next to him calling him that, and even huddled inside his hoodie and looking more tired than the rest, there’s something that draws you too him. He’s sitting across the aisle and one seat forward from where you sit, and every now and then he glances over and catches you looking. Every time you look away quickly, but not before seeing him flash a smile at you.

The bus trip goes without mishap, unless you count Sam and a handful of others looking a little sick, and it’s almost nine in the morning when you arrive at the sports grounds where everything is being held. There are club rooms and dormitories available for everyone who had to travel from out of town, and there’s a mad rush by most people to get the best rooms. You end up in a room with six beds, Clint and Bucky instantly claiming the two top bunks available, and you’re part way through putting sheets on your bed below Bucky’s, because you can’t stand sleeping bags, when there’s a knock on the door.

It’s Tony, and the guy he’d been sitting next to on the bus, who hadn’t been at the hockey practice you had, but Tony introduces him as Rhodey, or Jim, and asks if they can crash out on the two spare beds in your room. You say yes before the other guys have a chance to protest, but you don’t understand the looks that Bucky and Sam give you.

The actual competition doesn’t start until the next morning, with the first day for practice. The coach from the private school, Coach Danvers, gives you an hour to get settled, before you’re geared up and out of the field. She picks one of the fields furthest from the dorms, and as part of the warm up has you all jog down there.

Bucky, Sam and Clint stuff around the whole way, jogging together and making feigned blocks with their sticks to try and throw each other off course. Usually you’d join them, but Tony calls your name right as you are about to catch up to them, and it is only when you looked around that you see he is lugging the bag with all his goalie padding and guarding, making half-hearted shoulder gestures between you and the bag, and putting on one of the best pitiful looks you’ve seen. You smile, but go and grab one handle, and between the two of you, you manage to carry the bag and keep up a fairly decent pace. Tony grins at you around a red and yellow mouth guard, and you can’t help but smile back.

Practice isn’t as exhilarating as the real game, but you fit together better as a team than you did the first time. Bucky and Clint both take Forward positions as their primary, Sam takes Left Fullback, while Coach Danvers gets you to take Centre Midfield. You want to protest and say you’d like a defence position, but you know that’s only because you want to be closer to the goal. You don’t argue, since you know you can run, you love to run, and midfield offers the best of that. Besides, you’ll switch it around throughout the week.

It seems the only person who won’t switch out their position is Tony. It’s easy to figure out why too, as the day wears on. You saw him play when you went over to their school for the initial practice, but you didn’t really get to appreciate it then. He is reckless yet efficient. Unencumbered despite all the gear, which he affectionately dubs his armour. He moves out of the goals to intercept one of Bucky’s attacks, succeeds in tackling the ball off of him, and still return to the goals in time for Clint’s counter attack.

It’s both fascinating and infuriating, because you hate seeing the goal left open like that. But you hate that the grin slips off Tony’s face when you mention to him it’d be better if he stayed closer to the goals even more. You feel bad, because he’s obviously been goalie longer than you’ve even played hockey, but they did elect you as captain, for reasons you still can’t quite figure out, and you want to do your best for the whole team. You just can’t figure out why that hurt look at Tony gave you bothers you so much.

There is a mess hall set up in one of the club rooms, and dinner that night is a loud and crazy experience, and you find yourself at a table of people from your school, wedged between Clint and Natasha, who’s on the girls’ hockey team. You enjoy yourself, even though the food isn’t as good as what your mum makes, and can’t help but smile at the way Natasha keeps elbowing Bucky every time he tries to display too much affection in public. They are an odd couple, you think, but they are good for each other, and you’ve never seen Bucky happier.

You lie awake in bed that night, listening to the sound of Bucky’s snoring above you, and Clint talking in his sleep, indistinguishable sounds and murmurs, and the faint echo of music that is coming through Tony’s headphones. He’s still awake, sitting up in the bed that’s less than three feet from yours, face lit up by the screen of the tablet he’s working on. He hasn’t spoken to you much since the confrontation on the pitch, and you feel bad, and kind of hollow, because of it. You lie there watching the expressions shift across his face, obviously concentrating on what he’s doing, and you can guess how well it is, or isn’t, going based on the looks he pulls. Part of you wants to talk to him, tell him you’re sorry for what you said, but you’re not sure if he’d accept that.

Tony looks over briefly, eyes flickering in your direction, before he turns his head, and you know you’ve been caught. You smile, wondering if he’ll even see it, since your face is pressed against your pillow, but the music stops and he takes his headphones off. You take the chance to apologise, and he just shrugs, like it’s no big deal. So you ask what he’s working on, and he turns to tablet towards you, showing the image of a hockey pitch with coloured dots all over it.

You spend the rest of the night sitting side by side on your bed, going over defensive strategies, and offence plans, until you’re yawning just about every minute. Tony breathes a laugh every time you do, and looks at you in a way that reminds you of how your mum looked at you as a kid when you dressed up as a carrot for a school Thanksgiving production, and you want to blush, but you don’t think you have the energy.

You fall asleep at some point, slumped sideways and leaning towards Tony so you can still blink at the tablet. You don’t remember him going back to his bed, but when you wake up in the morning, you’re lying the wrong way up, somehow with your pillow under your head and the patchwork quilt your grandma made you tucked tightly around you and Tony is a vague lump inside a sleeping bag on the bed beside yours.

The carnival starts at 9am, but buses and cars full of local students start arriving around 8, and it is an effort to navigate your way through the crowds. You’ve got your kit bag with you, since you’ve got a soccer game first up and hockey almost directly afterwards, so you carry everything with you. You almost regret signing up for soccer as well, when you see Tony and the other private school kids that make up the team already kitted out in their hockey uniforms and huddled together under their school’s marquee.

It turns out to not be so bad, your first game is actually against the private school’s team, and you find yourself defending Jim Rhodes, who is a ruthless opponent – quick on his feet and rather agile. Tony is on the side lines, along with Clint and Natasha, and you can hear Clint and Tony bantering over whose school is better, and heckling each other as they try to cheer on their teams. It doesn’t matter that Tony is calling out encouragement to Jim, because when you look over at one point he’s grinning at you, and gives you a thumbs up while Clint isn’t looking.

You finish the game one all, and Jim shakes your hand before you have to make a mad bolt to the closest change rooms and back across the other side of the sports grounds to where your first hockey game is. Tony and Clint are on the sidelines waiting for you, Clint with your bag already slung over his shoulder, and the three of you head into the change rooms. Clint hassles you to hurry up as you’re kicking off your boots, changing socks and strapping on shin guards. Tony’s next to you, dragging on his shirt over top of his chest guard, leg guards and kickers already in place. You change shirts, pausing long enough to catch the sunscreen that Clint throws at you, and slathering some on your face, across the back of your neck, and a hasty swipe down each arm, hoping it’ll be enough, on top of what you applied this morning, to stop you ending up looking like a tomato by the end of the day, even though it’s only early spring. Tony grins then wolf whistles, Clint chokes and you blush, and drag your hockey shirt on in a hurry.

The game goes well. You’re playing one of the local public schools, and you feel slightly bad with how much you beat them by. Their defence is weak, and the attack is uncoordinated. When they do manage to make it into the striking circle, Tony is there to block and deflect any of their attacks. With that, coupled with a strong offence from Clint, Bucky, and Charles, one of the private school students, you end up beating the other team by five nil.

You find yourself in a clamour of bodies and hockey sticks, with Clint crowing in your ear and Bucky thumping you on the back, pressed in a close huddle with the whole team, and when you look up, Tony’s directly across from you. His helmet is pushed back on top of his head, hair sticking to his forehead in damp clumps, grinning so wide you think surely it must hurt, and when he winks at you, you find yourself grinning back, mouth guard and all.

You’re free for the rest of the day, and make the most of it since you have two soccer games and another hockey game tomorrow. You can’t be bothered going back to get changed, since you’re sure that Coach Danvers will want you back out on the pitch practicing as soon as everyone else clears out at five in the afternoon, so you spend the day in your uniform, plus a jacket when you start to cool down. You manage to catch the end of Nat’s game, which they win, but you wander off when she and Bucky start celebrating. Just because you’re happy for them doesn’t make it any less awkward when they start kissing like the rest of the world doesn’t exist.

You’re just wandering when you hear Tony call out to you, and you stop to let him catch up. He’s changed out of his hockey gear, instead wearing an AC/DC concert shirt for a tour that happened before you were born, but before you can think to comment, he’s already rambling, so quick you struggle to keep up, and before you know it he’s dragging you off in the direction of the main club rooms.

Inside the club rooms tucked back in one corner, behind where all the teachers and coaches are, there’s a table with several laptops set up on it, a printer at one end and stacks of paper everywhere. Hunched over one of the laptops is a boy with dark curly hair and glasses that keep sliding down his nose. Tony introduces him as Bruce, one of his classmates, who’s running the scoring system for the whole carnival. You don’t understand the mass of figures you can see on the screen, but Tony and Bruce seem to be in their element, and you’re pretty sure the language they are speaking isn’t your everyday standard English. 

A girl comes hurrying in, an efficient whirlwind of strawberry blonde hair and freckles, and she drops a stack of papers onto the desk and greets Tony with a fond smile and a kiss on the cheek. She introduces herself as Pepper, and you try to make small talk about the carnival, but for some reason you can’t focus on anything except the way that Tony’s draped himself over Pepper’s shoulder, and he looks so content, even while still chatting to Bruce, that you wonder if Pepper is his girlfriend. They fit well together, and you’re not quite sure why that makes you feel a little hollow inside, and in the end you beg out of the conversation to go in search of food. You might beat a slightly too hasty retreat, and you don’t know what to make of the look Tony gives you as you leave.

You don’t see Tony again until practice that afternoon. You spend the whole afternoon right down the bottom of the grounds with Natasha and Bucky, watching Clint and several other students doing archery, and only venture back up again as everyone starts leaving, putting your shin guards back on and getting ready to practice. Jim, Bruce and Pepper all arrive when Tony does, and sit on the side of the field and watch as Coach Danvers puts you through drills until it’s time to go to the mess for dinner. The girls’ hockey team from the private school are there too, and about five minutes in, Nat shows up with a few of the girls from her team, Jane, Darcy and Janet, and they ask if they can join in too.

You practice, and get along as a team, but there aren’t any mouth guard grins from Tony, not like you’d been getting recently, and you try not to let it distract you at all. When you are packing up to head back towards the dorms, you go to offer to help Tony carry his gear back, as you did the night before, but Jim is already grabbing the other strap of the bag, and you don’t think Tony even sees you.

You don’t talk to Tony until that night, when everyone else is asleep and he’s still sitting up on his bed, tablet on his lap. He keeps glancing at you, but you’re lying there with your eyes almost closed, watching him through your eyelashes, until he whispers your name, like he thinks you’re asleep but is checking anyway. You murmur a response, not opening your eyes, but then he’s wriggling out of his sleeping bag and muttering that he has something he wants to show you. You barely have time sit up and press yourself back into the corner before Tony is crawling onto your bed and wedging himself in besides you. You’re pressed shoulder to hip against each other and Tony props the tablet up on your thigh, the back of his hand resting against your leg. The coolness of his skin is seeping through your pyjama pants, and it takes you a long time to focus on the video that Tony is trying to show you, and you don’t think it’s just because you’re tired.

It starts off as hockey videos, slow motion captures of game play, attack and defence strategies that Tony thinks would be good to try. You nod and mumble agreement to some of them, and wish that he’d let you sleep, but at the same time, you don’t want Tony to move away from where he is. At the point where you start sliding back down in the bed, unable to keep your eyes open, head rolling to rest against Tony’s shoulder you think he switches to something else, something that looks like colours and lines and numbers, but you can’t focus properly.

You think you fall asleep like that, leaning against Tony, breathing in the scent of fabric softener and freshly clean skin. When you wake in the morning, you’re disappointed to find that Tony is back in his bed and wonder when that happened. You push those thoughts aside, because you have to get dressed and down to breakfast and back out onto the field for another day’s worth of sport.

For the next three days it goes like this. You compete, the combined hockey team doing better than your soccer team, but you find that doesn’t bother you. You spend the in between time watch Nat’s hockey games, not for the first time wishing that they’d let you have a mixed team, because Nat is exactly the sort of person you’d want on your team, and Clint’s archery. More and more often you find Tony dragging you along to watch Jim’s soccer games when they aren’t against your team. And when they are, Tony is there on the sidelines, often cheering for the wrong team, only to stop abruptly and point at Clint or Nat whenever Jim takes the chance to glare at him. You find yourself with Tony more and more often, and you think you should worry about not spending enough time with your school friends, but all you can think about is that at the end of the week is getting closer, and after that you probably won’t see Tony again.

Tony seeks you out too, so you think that he must be thinking something similar, and it makes you feel warm inside, like it does every time that Tony smiles at you. It becomes normal, surprisingly quickly, for Tony to drop down onto the ground beside you when you’re sitting with the rest of your school and sling an arm around your shoulder, or drape himself partially across your back. You don’t mind it, and you find yourself staying awake at night, pressed between the wall and Tony’s body, sharing headphones, and watching things on the tablet. It’s not even hockey related most of the time, but you don’t mind. You normally fall asleep first, and wake up the next morning wondering why you want to rewind back to the night before, and why as the end of the week gets closer, you start dreading going home again on Friday.

Thursday night Tony doesn’t get the tablet out of his bag and he doesn’t wedge in next to you on the bed like he has every other night. Instead he sits on the edge of his bed, shoes on even though he’s wearing his pyjama pants and hoodie, and asks you if you want to go look at the stars. It’s colder tonight than it has been any other night, but Tony asked you, and you find yourself agreeing to go.

It’s cold outside, that type of cold that comes from clear skies and threatens frost in the morning, but you don’t mind it, not even when you can see your breath, because between Tony and the stars, it feels like it is worth it. The stars are brighter here than at home, further removed from the lights of the town, and you can’t help but marvel at them. Tony has his arm hooked over your shoulder and is pointing out constellations, most of which you don’t know, and you’re reminded, not for the first time, how smart Tony is. You don’t feel dumb in comparison though. You just want to listen and soak up all his knowledge like a sponge. When Tony starts shivering so bad his teeth are chattering, but refuses to go back inside again, you don’t think twice about shifting closer, so his back is pressed against your chest, and your arms are wrapped around his shoulders, and you both stand there, heads tipped back to watch the night sky. Tony’s hands close around your wrists, but neither of you say anything as his shivering slowly subsides.

It’s almost midnight when you finally retreat back inside. Tony’s shivering starts up again almost as soon as you separate – you aren’t touching anymore, but you are walking close enough you can feel it. Your chest feels cold now without Tony leaning against you, so you wrap your arms around yourself and try not to focus on the feeling of loss that wants to settle in. When you get back inside, toe your shoes off, shrug off your jacket and crawl back into bed, you tell yourself that it’s Tony’s shivering and not that loss that makes you wriggle over to press against the wall and offer half the mattress to Tony. Just until he warms up. He hesitates for a moment, a look on his face you can’t quite decipher in the dark, and you’re just about to give up when he climbs into the bed beside you, tucking the quilt around himself. You lay there, one arm tucked up under your pillow, Tony’s shoulder pressing into your solar plexus, and something tells you that you should put your other arm around him and shift you both into a more comfortable position. You still haven’t decided if you should or not when you drift off to sleep.

He’s still there when you wake up in the morning, tucked against your chest, arm wrapped around your waist, breath hot through your t-shirt. You wish you could stay like that, but you can hear other people stirring in the room next to you, and you know you have to get up. You wake Tony up as gently as you can, and he blinks at you for several seconds before his cheeks go red and he starts wriggling away from you. It hurts, but you don’t really know why it feels like a lead weight in your stomach, so you ask if he was warm enough and try to act like everything is normal. And it is again, by breakfast time everything has slipped back to how it was before, with Tony sitting right by your side and leaning against your shoulder while he waits for you to finish your toast, chatting away to Nat and Pepper the whole time, who are sitting across the table from you.

It’s the last day, and you’ve only got two more hockey games to go and then it’s all over. Your final soccer game had been against Jim’s team, and had ended in another draw the afternoon before. There is a ceremony that afternoon, each school being awarded points based on participation, wins and drawn games over the variety of sports that were competed in over the week. Bruce and Tony had tried to explain the aggregated scoring system that was in place, as some schools were represented by more students in more sports than others, but at the time you were sitting next to Bruce and Tony was standing behind you, with his elbows propped on your shoulders, and it was hard to focus on the numbers and equations on the screen in front of Bruce, let alone what they were supposed to mean.

There are more cars and more people than ever on the last day, lots of parents and grandparents who have come to watch the last few events and the ceremony. Your mum couldn’t come, but she worked a lot, and you hadn’t pressed it, and although you’d been dreading the end of the week, you are rather keen to get back home to what’s familiar. You ask Tony if his parents are there, and he’s quick to scoff and shake his head, but he doesn’t want to talk about it at all, so you don’t push it. Sam’s mum and grandparents are there, and Clint’s older brother who lives in the city, but Clint doesn’t look overly impressed with the fact.

Both games that day are against teams you’ve already played who you won and lost against the first time you played them, and this time you draw and win against them. It’s brilliant to finish on a win. The last game is tough, they’ve beaten you once already, but Coach Danvers switches you all around, and you are in right defence, with Bucky taking your centre midfield position. You work hard, and after a few days of practicing the moves with Tony, you set up a formidable defence between you. You change strategies from the previous encounter with the opposing team, catch them off guard and end up winning two to one. Clint scores both goals and as soon as the whistle sounds he disappears amongst a pile of his cheering teammates. You’re still down at the defence end with Tony, and when you look over you’re getting another of his mouth guard grins, his helmet is already off, and you can’t help but grin back. The win makes you feel great, it’s six wins and two draws out of ten games, which you think is pretty good for the ragtag team that you are. But you don’t think it’s just that that makes your heart beat even faster when Tony drags off his over shirt and chest guard, leaving him only in a black singlet, and he runs over and hugs you before dragging you along to join the team celebration. You can see Coach Danvers off to the side, shaking her head, like she doesn’t know why you’re celebrating so much, but she’s smiling at the same time. 

Your school comes sixth overall out of eleven schools, which you think is pretty good for the first carnival it’s been involved in. Tony’s school comes second, and Tony and Jim are amongst the group that goes up to collect the trophy they’re given. Somehow, even surrounded by over a hundred other students, Tony’s eyes find you, and maybe, just maybe, that smile is just for you.

Packing up is a ruckus, there are students bustling around everywhere, and parents that came for the last day there to pick up their kids. Your room is pretty empty, Sam is already gone by the time you get there, and the only extra person in there in Barney, who seems to just be giving Clint a hard time about anything and everything, even the first place ribbon and trophy he’d been given for his individual effort at archery. You don’t want to butt in, because you know Clint hates it when people do, but you can’t help but ask Barney quite politely to leave the room so everyone can get packed up and ready to go. After all, Clint is coming home on the bus with you, so it’s not like his brother is there to pick him up.

It’s only Sam who goes home separately, so the bus from your school is still full, and you really don’t mind, because if you’re honest, you don’t want to say goodbye to Tony just yet. Their bus is emptier than on the trip there, and people have mostly spread out so it’s only one to a seat. You drop into the same seat you had before, across the aisle and one back from Tony, who’s sitting beside Jim, shuffling over to the window seat as Bucky takes the seat behind you and Clint flops down onto the seat behind Tony and proceeds to take up both seats, and almost instantly fall asleep. You don’t blame him, it’s been an exhausting week, though you don’t think you’d swap it for the world.

You’re dozing, about an hour into the trip, just about everyone else has fallen asleep, when you feel something nudge your leg, but before you work your eyes open a weight settles onto your lap, jerking you back into full awareness. Tony’s sitting on your lap, leaning back against the chair in front of you, with his feet up on the chair beside you and staring intently out the window. Before you can ask, he informs you that he wanted a window seat, but Rhodey wouldn’t move. You offer to move, but Tony shakes his head, says he’s comfortable, and you’re rather relieved. You place one of your arms over his legs, because you kind of want him to stay there, and there isn’t anywhere else to put it.

The rest of the trip goes like this, with Tony sitting on your lap, talking quietly between you so you don’t wake anyone else up. You look over at one point and see Clint watching you through half open eyes, but he just gives you a thumbs up and a sleepy smile before shifting slightly and closing his eyes again. You’re not really sure why the thumbs up, so you ignore it and go back to talking to Tony.

The bus gets to your school all too soon, and you, Bucky and Clint all have to shuffle off and find your bags. Tony, Jim, Bruce and Pepper all file off behind you to say goodbye. Jim and Bruce shake your hand. Pepper gives you a quick hug and a kiss on the cheek. Tony hugs you tighter, holds on longer, and you are just as reluctant to let go. It has been five days that you’ve been friends, and you don’t want to lose that. You swap phone numbers and email addresses while Coach Danvers hassles Tony to get back on the bus.

You’re waving goodbye, and waiting for your mum to pick you up when Bucky makes the comment about Tony being a little weird. You ask him what he means, and he stumbles over words until finally referring to how close Tony liked to be to people, especially you, always touching you. Nat kicks him in the shin, Clint tells him to stop being so homophobic, and you defend Tony by saying that’s just how he is. He was like that with Pepper and Jim and Bruce too, so you figured it was just a friendly thing. But the word Clint says sticks in your head. That label, that word, it worms its way into your mind, and you can’t help but wonder if there is any truth in it. What if Tony is gay? What if he does like you? You’ve never had any use for labels yourself, but it is in your head, and you can’t stop thinking about it the whole way home.

Your mum notices that you’re really quiet, and wants to know what’s wrong, but it’s not until at dinner that night that you ask her how would you know if you like someone. As more than a friend. She’s quiet for a moment, then says that you just want to be around them all the time, and when their attention is on you, you get that warm fuzzy feeling inside, and all you can think about is how your heart beat a little quicker and it got that little bit harder to breathe every time Tony smiled at you. The way you liked it so much when he would lean against you, or sling his arm around your shoulder, or press against you in your bed. And that hug, how you hadn’t wanted to ever let go. And you think maybe, maybe you like Tony, as more than a friend. And it’s all too late to act on it.

Bucky messages you the next day, apologising for if he said the wrong thing. The message says that if you’re gay for Tony, then he’s okay with that, because you’re still his best friend, and that’s what counts. As long as Tony is good to you. You try the word out, gay, but you still don’t like labels. You just know that you like Tony and that you miss him.

Tony starts messaging you Sunday night, and you can’t seem to stop after that, although you have to tone it down while you’re at school. You haven’t told him how you feel yet, because it does still seem too late, and there’s always the chance that he doesn’t like you like that in return. It’s Nat who eventually asks if you are going to tell him, and Clint looks a little confused, and says he thought you and Tony already had a thing going on, what with the bed sharing and the bus ride home. It shouldn’t surprise you that Clint noticed that, because he sees everything, no matter how sneaky you think you’re being. It’s Clint that convinces you to say something to Tony though, mostly because he keeps insisting that Tony likes you, and it was definitely not just as a friend.

You deliberate over it until Thursday. It’s been almost a week since you’ve seen Tony, but you don’t miss him any less, and the more you think about it the more you’re convinced that you really do like Tony. You don’t tell him that though. You go with the safer option of just saying you miss him, and it’s an excruciating minute before he replies that he misses you too. It makes you smile, and it makes your heart hurt, but you think it’s a start.

Tony doesn’t message you much the next day, and you wonder if you said the wrong thing, but when the school bell rings and you’re filing out the gate to head home you know you didn’t. Tony’s standing there, leaning against the fence, and when he sees you he smiles, the best smile you’ve seen so far, and then he’s hugging you, a little too tight and a moment too long, but you don’t want to let go either.

You invite Tony over to your place for the afternoon, and he’s quick to agree. You invite the others too, because you don’t want it to get weird if you’ve misread the situation, but Bucky, Nat and Clint come up with varying excuses as to why they can’t, and you know exactly what they are doing. You don’t mind though, and you’re pretty sure you have the best friends ever.

You walk home with Tony pressed against your side, arm slung over your shoulder, but it’s not the same as when you were at hockey. You know now, exactly the effect he has on you. Your heart beats that little bit quicker, it’s that little bit more difficult to breathe, but you relish every moment of it. You can’t get enough of that light headed feeling, and you think that even if Tony doesn’t like you, this is will be good enough.

You’re half way home when Tony stops talking about school and everything else he’d been babbling about, and you stop, mostly out of concern. You stand there, Tony still leaning against you, so you can’t really see him. After a moment he says your name, really quietly, and you turn your head to try and get a better look at him. His face is close enough to be blurry, and there is only the slightest moment, where you think your heart takes the opportunity to skip a beat, before Tony’s lips are pressed against yours, and you think that, no, this is better than good.


End file.
